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6 - Offerings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Saburo Sugiyama
Affiliation:
Aichi Prefectural University, Japan
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Summary

Before the mass-sacrificial burial complex at the FSP was discovered in the 1980s, the uniqueness of the offerings associated with it was pointed out by Sempowski (1983, 1994: 47–50, 177–78). In her systematic mortuary analysis, which focused on social differentiation reflected in the variety and quantity of objects, Sempowski noted that offerings found at the pyramid early in the twentieth century were distinct from those found in residential areas, especially in quality.

Excavations in the 1980s substantially increased the number and variety of offerings known from the FSP. As we have seen, the cohesiveness of the graves in and around the pyramid indicates that they comprised a single burial complex dedicated to the pyramid. The offerings connected with the burials are exceptionally rich in quality, quantity, and diversity compared to any found to date in Teotihuacan. Their exceptional quality is only comparable to those being discovered recently in the Moon Pyramid.

It was noted in 1989 that the offerings were combined quite differently from those previously known in Teotihuacan, and that some materials were highly unusual for Mesoamerica, consisting mainly of objects of personal adornment and ritual objects and not including pottery, except for some Storm God jars and vessels that might have contained liquid or organic materials.

In this chapter, I describe and analyze these offerings, emphasizing their symbolic nature. I focus on the offerings' morphological features and spatial distribution to elucidate the meanings of the pyramid's burial contexts.

Type
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Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership
Materialization of State Ideology at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan
, pp. 122 - 199
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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  • Offerings
  • Saburo Sugiyama
  • Book: Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489563.006
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  • Offerings
  • Saburo Sugiyama
  • Book: Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489563.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Offerings
  • Saburo Sugiyama
  • Book: Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489563.006
Available formats
×